Geosynthetics and Reinforced Soil Structures

Prof. K. Rajagopal
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture - 15
Design Example of Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls-I

Very good morning students. In the previous lectures, we have discussed about the
Design of Reinforced soil Retaining Walls. And in this lecture, let us look at
some numerical examples and the actual design of the reinforced soil retaining walls
is done through very complicated excel spreadsheets or some specialized programs. But
just for the purpose of classroom illustration, I will take a very simple example with
a very simple geometry. And let us go step by step of how we go about in by hand
calculations, and let us take a wall that is of 6 meters height.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:58)

And let us assume, some soil properties like this, the reinforced soil it has got a
friction angle of 35 degrees and unit weight of 20 kilo Newtons per cube meter and the
back fill has friction angle of 30 degrees and unit weight of 18 kilo Newtons per cubic
meter. And then the permanent surcharge or the dead load the surcharge, let it be 15 k
Pa and the live load surcharge 25 k P a. And then let us assume that, the foundation
soil has an allowable bearing pressure qna of 200 k P a and let us now try to go
through some designs.
(Refer Slide Time: 03:06)

As we have seen in the previous lectures, the effect of the self- weight is the
triangular pressure distribution, that is the ka times Ɣh and that is a maximum, at the
bottom of the wall. And then the effect of surcharge loading is constant that has a
rectangular pressure distribution, and our Kab is 1 minus 1 - sin Φb / 1 - sin Φb and
that, comes out as one-third. So, our active load on wall Pa is one half and actually,
let us also throw in some lateral load that acts at the top of the wall, that could be
from the crash barrier. And let us assume that, that particular load is 25 kilo Newtons
per cubic meter, 25 kilo Newton per meter length, so our the load is like this.

So, the lateral load that, acts on the wall because of the self-weight of the soil is 108
kilo Newtons per cubic meter and because of the dead load and live load surcharge is
80. And because of the traction forces, we have a force of a 25 kilo Newton per meter
and the net total of this is 213 kilo Newtons per meter and let us calculate the over
turning moment.
(Refer Slide Time: 06:14)

And as we have seen, that the dead load surcharge, the self- weight loading acts at
a height of one-third of the wall height; whereas, the uniform surcharge acts at a height
of H by 2. So, we can calculate the over turning moment as 108 times 6 by 3 plus 80
times 6 by 2 plus times 6 that is. So, our overturning moment comes out as a 606 kilo
Newton meter per meter length of the wall, in the perpendicular direction and the
lateral force is 213 kilo Newtons per meter.

And now, our length of the reinforced block should be sufficient to counteract these
lateral forces and the overturning moment with sufficient factor of safety and let us see
how we can do it. And it is actually, it is a trial and error procedure and let us start with
reinforced block length of two-thirds of the wall height, that is let us say 4 meters, let us
say that, we take this length as 4 meters. And for all the stability calculations, we
include the permanently acting loads like for example, here the dead load surcharge is
15 k Pa that we take it as part of our stabilizing forces so our the weight of the
reinforced block.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:21)

So, the total vertical force is the sum of the weight of the reinforced soil block and the
permanent loads. And the unit weight of the reinforced soil fill is 20 kilo Newtons
per meter that is this and the height is 6 meters, and the length of the block is 4 meters
and the permanent surcharge is 15 and the length of the block is 4. So our total vertical
load is 540 kilo Newtons per meter. And now, let us estimate the shear force that is
acting. So, this is P a and the resistance, as we had discussed the earlier is either
function of the reinforced soil or the function of the foundation soil, depending on
whichever one is more critical. But in this particular case since we do not have any
data on the foundation soil, as a trail. Let us assume, our, the μ that is the friction factor
as tan of two-thirds of the friction angle of the reinforced fill.

So, let us assume and let us calculate the resistance. So, this resistance force comes
out as 233 kilo Newton per meter and our factor of safety against lateral sliding is the
force sorry the resistance divided by the force. So, this factor of safety is coming out as
1.1, which is much less than 1.5, so this particular length of the reinforced block is too
short and it is not adequate to safely resist the lateral force. So, now, let us increase
the length to a higher value and do the calculations.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:56)

Even when we increase the length of the block because our height of the wall is
constant at 6 meters, these up-sitting forces will not change. Now, let us write them
separately and now increase the length to 5 meters. So our Rv comes to, that comes to
600 plus 75 that is 675 and our factor of safety, against lateral sliding is 675 times,
this divided by the up-sitting force of 213 it comes to nearly 1.5 and let us, calculate the
resisting moment.

So, actually the resisting force is 20 times 6 times 5, 5 is the length of the
reinforced block and this 5 by 2 is the lever arm, that is half the length of the
reinforced block and 15 times 5 is once again, the resisting force and 5 by 2 is the lever
arm. And our resisting moment is 1687 and our, the factor of safety against overturning
is 1687 divided by 606 and it comes out as 2.78, which is greater than 2. So, this length
of the reinforced block is adequate, as for as our, the resistance against lateral sliding is
concerned and then the resistance against overturning moment. And now, let us
calculate the bearing pressure.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:39)

And for calculating the bearing pressure, we include all the loads that are acting,
including the live loads and then the permanent loads and so on. So, our Rv in this case
is 20 times 6 times 5 plus 15 plus 25 times 5 that is a 600 plus 200, 800 kilo Newtons per
meter and our eccentricity is M0 by Rv that is 606 divided by 800 that comes out as 0.76
and this is less than L by 6 that is 0.83.

So, actually our eccentricity should be within the middle third, in the case of soils and
within one-fourth of the length, in the case of rock foundation. So, in this case our
eccentricity is 0.76 which is less than 0.83, so it is okay and our sigma v b is Rv by B
minus 2e that is 800 by, this comes to a bearing pressure of almost 230 kilo Pascals,
which is more than the allowable bearing pressure of 200. So we will have to once
again, revise the length so that our bearing pressure is also less than the less than
the bearing capacity.

So, now let us say increase the length of the reinforced block to 6 meters. So, our Rv
comes to, so actually you notice that, our eccentricity now is only 0.63 as compared
to
0.76 when our reinforced block length was 5 meters and that is because our
overturning moment is remaining constant, the overturning moment of 606 whereas,
the weight of the reinforced block is increasing when we increase the length. So, this is
one way, in which we can increase the stabilizing forces by increasing the length
of the reinforcement, so our eccentricity is now reduced to 0.63.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:42)

And our sigma v b is, so this bearing pressure comes to 202 kilo Pascals, which is very
close to 200 k Pa. So, we can just leave it like that, that the 6 meters length of the
reinforced block for this particular case and this 6 meters length will satisfy all the
requirements of the factor of safety against sliding. And then the overturning,
bearing capacity and then the settlements, the factor of safety against sliding should
be greater than 1.5 and the factor of safety of overturning should be greater than 2.

And in this case, we have achieved more than that because our length of the reinforced
block is increased just t o satisfy the bearing pressure. So, our, the factor of safety
against sliding would have gone up much beyond 1.5 and the overturning factor of
safety would have gone to much more than 3 because our eccentricity has become very
small. And the factor of safety against the bearing capacity and the settlements is
satisfied, by making sure that our bearing pressure, is less than the allowable bearing
pressure that is the q na.

So, this length of the reinforced block of 6 meters satisfies all the requirements from our
design considerations. So, this completes the external stability analysis of this
particular retaining wall and the next step is to calculate the reinforcement spacing
that, we will see in some other lecture, but let us slightly modify the problem, with a
sloped back fill and do the calculations.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:46)

Now, our backfill let us say that it has a slope of 10 degrees sorry it should be 10
degrees. And let us assume, the trial length as a 7 meters because we have earlier seen
that we require 6 meters of length, to satisfy all the requirements and this wall, as it has
a slope, back fill slope; let us assume slightly higher length of 7 meters and this is
our reinforced block has 7 meters length, like this.

And our H prime now, the height of the soil that our reinforced block should support is
H prime and our H prime is 6 plus 7 times tan 10 degrees that is and let us use the, a
simple Rankine’s formula for calculating the lateral pressures, say if we apply the
Rankine’s formula the K a comes out as 0.35, in the earlier case it was only 1 by 3 that
is 0.33 this case because of the back fill slope, we have slightly higher lateral earth
pressure constant.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:14)

And, now let us calculate the P a as 1 half. So, this lateral force because of the
self-weight of the soil comes out as approximately 162 and the lateral force because of
the live load and the dead load surcharge comes to nearly 100. So, the total lateral
force is
262 and then the overturning moment M0 is 162 times. So, our overturning moment, now
is 751 and if you compare this to the earlier one of 606 this is much higher mainly
because we have a sloping back fill. So, because of that our K is high and then the
effective, height of the soil that we need to support is much higher, the previously it
was only 6 meters now, we need to support height of 7 meters, 7.2 meters to be
very precise.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:13)

So, now let us do the stability calculations, see the total downward force is because
of this rectangular portion, plus the weight of the soil within that triangle and then
the permanent surcharge, that is acting on top of the slope and this force is the total
downward force, say it is 6 times 7 times 20 plus and this comes out as 840 plus 86 plus
105 that is, this, the total downward force is 1031 kilo Newton per meter, the factor
of safety against the sliding. So, our factor of safety against sliding comes out as 1.7
which is more than 1.5. So, this length of the block, is sufficient as far as the factor of
safety against the lateral sliding is a concern and now, similarly let us calculate the
factor of safety against overturning.
(Refer Slide Time: 317)

So, we have already calculated our P a as 262 and our overturning moment as

751. (Refer Slide Time: 32:17)

(Refer Slide Time: 320)

See here, our overturning moment is acting in this direction, the resisting moment is
acting in this direction and the lever arm for the rectangular portion is this and the lever
arm for this triangular portion is 2 by 3 L.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:15)

So, because of that we have taken two-thirds of the 7 and so the total resisting
moment comes out as 2940 plus 402 plus 367, the factor of safety this is, this factor
of safety against overturning comes out as much more than, 3 it comes out as 5 which
is much
higher than 3. So, this length of reinforcement is adequate and now, let us calculate
the bearing pressure.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:26)

And for this we need to include the effect of the dead load also, so let us calculate the
total force once again. So, by including the effect of the dead load and the live load
,our total downward force increases to 1206 and our eccentricity is M0 by Rv which
comes out as 0.63 which is less than L by 6. So, this is and our bearing pressure.

So, our bearing pressure after all these calculations comes out as 210, which is higher
than the allowable bearing pressure of 200. So, we will have to increase the length
of the reinforcement section and when we increase the length, we increase in some
convenient numbers like, we cannot increase by just say 5 centimeters or 10
centimeters because it becomes very difficult to cut the reinforcement, especially to
odd lengths, especially when you have say the geogrids which have specific puncture
openings it may not be possible to cut at odd places through the through the apertures.

And normally, we increase the length of the reinforcement block, in increments of

250 mm and i n this particular case a length of reinforced block of 7.5 meters
satisfies, the bearing pressure requirement also, I am not showing that calculation, but
you can follow the similar calculations by substituting 7.5 in place of a length of 7
meters. So, we will see that, the bearing pressure comes out as less than 200. So, a
length of 7.5 meter satisfies all our requirements, the factor of safety requirements.
(Refer Slide Time: 38:13)

So, we have seen that the, if you have a horizontal fill, we require a reinforced
block length of 6 meters and if you have a sloped fill, we require a block length of 7.5
meters, which is more than that we have for a horizontal backfill.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:28)

And in this particular example, we have checked for safety against the lateral sliding
greater than 1.5, overturning factor of safety greater than 2 and then the bearing
pressure. So, the remaining calculation is the overall factor of safety or the factor of
safety against the slip circle failure.
(Refer Slide Time: 40:12)

So, that is we consider number of slip circles, passing through the foundation soil,
either through the toe or anywhere in general.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:34)

And make sure that, the factor of safety that we get through the slip circle
analysis should be at least greater than 1.3 for moderate factor of safety, and if it is very
important structure, the factor of safety that, we need to get through the slip circle
analysis, should be at least greater than 1.5.
(Refer Slide Time: 40:59)

The actually, in this particular example that we have considered, the reinforced block
length has come out as very high, usually the length of the block that we require is about
two-thirds to three-fourth of the of the wall height, but in this case because our
foundation soil is relatively, it has relatively less bearing capacity that is 200 k Pa, our
block length is 6 meters in the first case, that is the length almost equal to the height of
the wall.

And in the second case, the length is 7.5 meters once again, it is almost equal to
the height of the effective height of the wall at the backend of reinforced block and the
calculations are reasonably simple, but then, is actually, what we do is, we write a
small excel spreadsheet because all these calculations are repetitive in nature and so we
need to repeatedly revise the calculations, especially for a sloped fill like this,
whenever you revise the length of the block, the height of the soil also changes and
because of that our upsetting forces they increase.

So, the next step in the design calculations is how do we decide, the vertical spacing of
the different reinforcement layers and then what type of reinforcement do we
provide, what should be the strength and then what should be the type, whether it
should be polymeric geosynthetic or should it be steel strips or it should a steel mesh
type thing, then what should be the facing, there the things all those factors we let us
consider, in some other lecture because of lack of time in this particular lecture.

Thank
you.